Garret my assistant liked the Mesa V30 live in the room. My preference in the room was the Marshall 1960 cab with G12T-75s - just had that old school Marshall "aaaahhhhh"...
Clip-wise I think my favourite is also the G12T-75 - love the "bite". I do like the high end thing Stephen's talking about, and do like the TT Alnico, but might prefer the Fender Oxford for that kind of tone (a bit more old school). Also really like the Orange V30 clip...
The bottom line with Stephen's 18W for me was that there was really no bad tone with any speaker. It ALWAYS worked regardless of how it was dialed in/set up.
Keep in mind when listening that the tones I dialed in were "average" tones. In other words, they couldn't be too bright or the TT's would have sounded too bright, and they couldn't be too dark or some of the other speakers would have sounded even darker than they do here. If the TT's hadn't been included in the testing, the dark speakers wouldn't sound quite as dark because the test tones would have been dialed in brighter at the amp... fwiw!!
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Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter
www.slyfichapel.com